61-million-year-old continent found buried beneath Greenland’s ice

In the southern arm of the Arctic Ocean, beneath the Davis Strait, scientists have revealed a microcontinent.

Beneath the deep icy waters, a proto-microcontinent formed between Greenland and Canada. It is a submerged piece of continental crust about 12 to 15 miles long.

The continent began assembling nearly 61 million years ago during the separation of Greenland and Canada. The critical plate movements occurred between 33 and 61 million years ago.

According to the study, this recently recognized block of continent crust was formed due to prolonged rifting and seafloor spreading that created the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay.

Continent took millions of years to form

The continent took millions of years to form, a process that developed in the Davis Strait around the time the direction of plate movements changed from northwest-southwest to east-west.

Jordan Phethean, a researcher working on the study, told Phys.org about the well-defined changes in plate motion that occur in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay.

These “have relatively limited external complications affecting them, make this area an ideal natural laboratory for studying microcontinent formation,” Phethean says.

Scientists stumbled upon this block by employing a combination of crustal thickness data derived from gravity maps, seismic reflection data, and plate tectonic modeling.

Detailed gravity maps helped locate mid-ocean ridges and transform faults, while seismic data provided images of the subsurface, revealing the structure and thickness of the crust.

An ongoing phenomenon

Phethean explained that the rifting required to form a microcontinent is an ongoing phenomenon, and every earthquake could play a role in the next microcontinent separation.

“The aim of our work is to understand their formation well enough to predict that very future evolution.”

The finding could be crucial as it explains Earth’s geological landscape. The location of the microcontinent is also essential, as the area is relatively untouched by human activity.

Phethean notes that the well-defined changes in plate motion occurring in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay, with relatively limited external complications affecting them, make “this area an ideal natural laboratory for studying microcontinent formation.”

Shifting, rifting of tectonic plates in Davis Strait

Overall, the proto-microcontinent formed as a result of the shifting and rifting of tectonic plates in the Davis Strait.

This discovery sheds light on the dynamic processes of plate tectonics and crustal formation in Earth’s geological history, offering a natural laboratory for studying similar phenomena globally.

“Better knowledge of how these microcontinents form allows researchers to understand how plate tectonics operates on Earth, with useful implications for the mitigation of plate tectonic hazards and discovering new resources,” Phethean said.

This study sheds light on the complex interplay of plate movements and structural features that contribute to the formation of microcontinents, offering new insights into the processes that shape Earth’s geological landscape.

The study was published in earlier in May 2024 in the journal – Gondwana Research.